Positive Spin: Senate Campaigning on the Web

Abstract

“I'm extremely excited to have a prescene [sic] on the Web.”The perpetual greeting from the campaign home page of Senator Carl Levin (1996) shows that as with the adoption of any new technology, Internet use by political candidates will undergo some early rough spots. The early stages of a technology also tend to prompt divergent claims about the merits of the new technology. Thus, while political scientist David Canon has praised campaign sites as a “positive development” for allowing the transmission of extensive information, Ted Becker, another political scientist, has been highly critical of the sites calling them “cyberfluff” (Skiba 1995). By systematically studying the content of 1996 Senate candidate home pages, this article offers some hope for reconciling the divergent claims about Internet campaigning.

Political parties, the Internet and the 2005 General Election: third time lucky?

“…The level playing field hypothesis suggests that a small party which understands the design and marketing of a web site, or make innovative use of e-mail lists, can be more effective than a more well-resourced party which does not know how to utilise the medium. The proponents of "politics as usual" suggest that there is in fact a very steep slope which the smaller parties have to climb (Klotz, 1997;D'Alessio, 1997;Sednow, 1998;Margolis et al, 2003). The argument is not so much that larger parties will use their greater resources to dominate online, but that their dominance in offline media encourages more people to view their Internet presence than smaller parties.…”

An outsider's medium? The European elections and UK party competition on the internet

“…Over the past three years an increasing number of studies have examined parties' Internet activity, particularly in the US (Margolis et al, 1997(Margolis et al, , 1999Kamark, 1999;Klotz, 1997) and in Europe Ward, 1998, 2000;Voerman, 1998;Hoff andLofgren, 1997, 1999;Smith, 1998;Nixon and Johansson, 1999). Based on such studies both 'equalizers' and 'normalizers' alike agree that there is an increasing amount of online activity from parties.…”

“…Much of this work has consisted of descriptive accounts of a range of websites and impressionistic evidence (Auty and Nicholas, 1998;Birdsell and Muzzio, 1997;Margolis ef al, 1997;Roper, 1999;Stone, 1996). There have been attempts, however, to assess systematically parties' activities in the new media Ward, 1998, 2000;Hill and Hughes, 1998;Klotz, 1997;Voerman, 1998;Ward and Gibson, 1998). The aim of these studies has been to create a quantitative framework for analysis and comparison of party websites within national contexts.…”

“…In the US the Internet is on the verge of becoming a mainstream campaigning tool (Dulio et al, 1999;Klotz, 1997;Kamark, 1999). By contrast, in the UK, despite parties creating an early presence on World Wide Web (WWW), sites have often been dormant for long periods and web campaigning has been minimal.…”

New Parties, New Media: Italian Party Politics and the Internet

“…From empirical studies in the US, Europe and New Zealand Ward 1998, 2000;Margolis et al, 1997Margolis et al, , 1999Klotz 1997;Smith 1997Smith , 1999Hoff and Lofgren 1997;Roper 1999;Voerman 1998;Nixon and Johansson, 1999), it is possible to identify five major functions of party sites: • information provision: where parties exploit the ability of the WWW to store large volumes of information at minimal cost and use sites as online libraries • campaigning and electioneering: although audiences may currently be limited, the Web's interactivity and narrowcasting features can be used to appeal to supporters, for example, to the traditionally sceptical young electorate more likely to use this technology • resource generation and recruitment: as with advertising in the traditional media, party Web-sites offer opportunities to raise funds and recruit supporters. Parties can sell merchandise and solicit support online from a global audience • networking and organizational linkage: one of the WWW's major features is the scope it provides for linking sites together.…”